AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS: IRANIAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS (ECONOMICS AND AGRICULTURE JOURNAL)
Year:2019 | Volume:13 | Issue:3 |Papers Count:8

Introduction: Despite the relative advantage of producing some agricultural products, Iran is one of the largest importers of agricultural sector, so the total agricultural imports in 2016 were about 8. 78 billion dollars. One of the most imported products is red meat and livestock inputs. Animal corn is the first imported product of Iran and is one of the most important livestock feed. Due to the low level of domestic production of animal corn, large quantity of it is imported every year. Soybean meal is also the fourth-largest imported agricultural product and the seventh product of the country's import. High dependence on the import of red meat and livestock inputs and the lack of domestic production of these products in Iran have caused any change in import policy of these products will affect the welfare of many producers and consumers. Due to the close relationship between import of these products and food security and the welfare of the society, recognizing the factors affecting the import demand of these products is important to proper policy making in livestock sector. In fact, the import demand function in developing economies should be investigated because it has significant effects on the international trade policy in general and the exchange rate policy in particular. Materials and Methods: In this study, contrary to previous studies which considered only a few factors, it was investigated the effects of tariff rate, GDP, real effective exchange rate, domestic production and relative price of imported products on the import demand of veal, lamb, chicken, animal corn and soybean meal. Due to correlation between the disturbance term in different equations, it was used the simultaneous equations method and also it was used imperfect substitution approach to derive import demand function. For this purpose, monthly data from April 2010 to March of 2016 has been used. To determine the appropriate estimator, Hegy test and diagonal disturbance covariance matrix test was used. In order to investigate co-integration, the Johansen-Juselius test was used for each import demand equation. Additionally, it was used Engle ARCH LM heteroscedasticity test and Harvey LM autocorrelation test for all equations. Results showed that there is no heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation in the system. Results and Discussion: Based on results there was a long run relationship between variables in veal, lamb, chicken, animal corn and soybean meal equation. Results showed that all the variables in the import demand equations including veal, lamb, animal corn and soybean meal has been expected signs. Also results showed that in the equation of veal import demand, the coefficients of tariff rate and relative price was negative and significant. In the equation of lamb import demand, the coefficient of domestic production of veal was negative and significant. Moreover, in the equation of animal corn import demand, the coefficients of tariff rate and real effective exchange rate were negative and significant. Eventually in the equation of soybean meal import demand, the coefficients of tariff rate, real effective exchange rate and relative price were negative and significant. Therefore, it can be noted that due to high dependence on imports of livestock inputs, especially animal corn and soybean meal, it is decided every year to import these inputs only basis of factors such as tariff rate, real effective exchange rate and relative price. Suggestion: Based on results which showed that tariff rate has significant effect on the import demand of veal, animal corn and soybean meal, it is helpful to use this tool to control the import quantity of veal, animal corn and soybean meal, whereas changing tariff rate to control the import quantity of lamb do not have much effect. Also, it was found that the import demand for livestock inputs was highly elastic to change in real effective exchange rate. So, it is necessary to prevent unreasonable increase in exchange rate and its fluctuations. Since, it was found that the lamb import demand was highly elastic to domestic production, it is recommended to adopt policies to increase production of lamb through the provision of livestock inputs required by producers.

Introduction: poultry is one of strategic and economic agricultural products in Iran due to its important role in gross domestic product, employment and export. Therefore, investigating the efficiency of broiler chicken breeding units and trying to improve their efficiency and optimum use of resources have special importance. Several techniques are used to evaluate decisionmaking units in DMUs with a restricted multiplier. DEA is recognized as a methodology widely used to evaluate the relative efficiency of a set of decision-making units (DMUs) involved in a production process. Although DEA is a powerful tool to used measure efficiency, there are some restrictions that need to be considered. One important restriction involves the sensitivity of DEA to the specific data under analysis. In this paper, the interval fuzzy and robust data envelopment analysis models are used to concentrate on DEA with uncertain data for poultry farms in Khuzestan province. To this end, the achievement of sub-objectives such as estimating the optimal use of inputs in inefficient units and comparing the two methods of RDEA and FIDEA in terms of their capability against uncertain data is also considered. Materials and Methods Data envelopment analysis (DEA) traditionally assumes that input and output data of the different decision making units (DMUs) are measured with precision. However, in many real applications inputs and outputs are often imprecise. This paper applied RDEA and FIDEA models using imprecise data represented by an uncertainty set in estimating the efficiency of broiler chicken breeding units. RDEA method is based on the robust optimization approach of Bertsimas and Sim to seek maximization of efficiency under uncertainty (as does the original DEA model). In this approach, it is possible to vary the degree of conservatism to allow a decision maker to understand the tradeoff between a constraint’ s protection and its efficiency. The method incorporates the degree of conservatism in the maximum probability bound for constraint violation. 105 of broiler chicken producers were selected by simple random sampling and necessary data were collected by completing a questionnaire. Results and Discussion: In this section, the results of evaluating DMUs are presented which consists of eight inputs and tree outputs. The results showed that the average technical efficiency of poultry farms in RDEA model at three probability levels of 10, 50 and 100% was 88%, 91% and 93%, respectively. In fact, the same amount of output can be achieved by improving production management and by reducing 12%, 9% and 7% of the total inputs respectively. In the FIDEA model, if poultry use 20% of their resources optimally, the average efficiency of traditional poultry varies from 88 to 96% and in semi-traditional poultry from 80 to 91%. Inputs such as cost of drug, cost of electricity, cost of water and area in semi-traditional poultry farms and inputs such as area and labor force in traditional poultry farms are the most technically inefficient inputs and need to save to be closer to efficient units. Conclusions: Evaluating the performance of many activities by a traditional DEA approach requires precise input and output data. However, input and output data in real-world problems are often imprecise or vague. To deal with imprecise data, this study uses RDEA and FIDEA approaches as a way to quantify vague data in DEA models. It is shown that the approaches can be a useful tool in DEA models without introducing additional complexity into the problem. A case study of broiler chicken breeding units is presented to illustrate the reliability and flexibility of the models. The problem was solved for a range of given uncertainty and constraint violation probability levels using the GAMS software. As a result, efficiency decreases as the constraint violation probability increased. Additionally the RDEA approach provides both a deterministic guarantee about the efficiency level of the model, as well as a probabilistic guarantee that is valid for all symmetric distributions. Since the Monte Carlo simulation model proved more capable of the RDEA model than the DEA and FIDEA models, it seems appropriate to use the results to improve the conditions of inefficient units.

Introduction Agritourism is one of most attracting forms of tourism industry that started form the late twentieth century in rural areas of all developed countries and it could play a significant role in developing these areas that were suffering from economic and social problems. The massive presence of tourists in an area damages the ecosystems, the environment and undermine the culture of the inhabitants of the region. Therefore, different perspectives are presented on the advantages and disadvantages of its types in the field of environmental protection, comfort of tourists and residents along with tourism development. Therefore, it is necessary to consider the concept of sustainability, conservation, protection and recycling of natural environments. Thus, in this study, firstly it is tried to propose sustainable agritourism indicators and then sustainability indicator have been constructed. Finally, the potential of the sustainable tourism of agriculture is measured, so that the sustainability potential can be achieved before agritourism development and adopt the proper policy and sustainability plan. Matherials & Methods In this study, agritourism has been analyzed in terms of sustainability. The comprehensive indicators and economic efficiency measures, environmental considerations and socio-cultural values of the community or region must first be considered in order to assess the potential of agritourism with an emphasis on sustainability. These indicators are more applicable at the national and regional management level. Using these indicators in the potential of sustainable agritourism can play an important role in diversifying the economy and the environment. In general, it is necessary to evaluate agritourism along with sustainability. Results and discussion The results show that the three aspects of agritourism (social, economic and environmental) do not have the same level of sustainability. The level of environmental, economic and social sustainability of agritourism in Kerman is 0. 191, 0. 591 and 0. 429 respectively, indicating that the level of environmental sustainability is lower than other aspects. The sustainability of the environmental, economic, and social aspects of agritourism in Bam is 0. 269, 0. 522 and 0. 565, respectively, which indicates a low level of environmental sustainability. The environmental, economic, and social sustainability in Jiroft are 0. 182, 0, 320 and 0. 299, respectively. The environmental sustainability is 0. 112 and economic and social sustainability are 0. 578 and 0. 532 in Rafsanjan. The sustainability level of environmental, economic, and social aspects of agritourism in Sirjan, respectively are 0. 132, 0. 377 and 0. 525. The sustainability of environmental, economic and social aspects of agritourism in Zarand city is respectively 0. 109, 0. 288 and 0. 203. The environmental aspect has the lowest level of sustainability in all of the cities studied. In the next step, the overall sustainability of agritourism destination has been studied using a mathematical programming model. Suggestion Agricultural farms as the main occupation of villagers and farmers will be exposed to the dangers of the inaccuracies of some tourists as well as the related laws of these lands. Therefore, it is necessary to pay attention to the sustainability of agricultural areas for the development of sustainable agriculture, and this sustainability must be considered in all economic, environmental and social aspects. In other words, if agritourism is not properly managed, it will have negative effects such as increased waste, air, water and noise pollution, the loss of plant and animal diversity and the degradation of the environment of the agricultural area, as well as economic and social damages such as raising land prices, increasing the cost of living in agricultural areas and destroying local cultures. Balancing these factors to increase the positive effects and reduce the negative effects require making principled policies through proper planning and management. Education, making adjustments and coordinating the interests of various groups of local communities, tourism industry activists and tourists to preserve the natural resources and social heritage of a certain destination can decrease the negative effects of tourism and reduce the negative effects of environmental and natural resources at the national and regional levels.

Introduction Wheat is presented as strategic agricultural product because it is the main human food source affecting on food security. Wheat farming covers more than half cereals farmlands in Iran. Accordingly, wheat is also the core cereal in Iran. This study intents to investigate the raised question “ how does climate change affects wheat yield? ” Rain-fed wheat farming as a sensitive crop to climatic aspects was investigated regarding the study purpose. Materials and Method Utilizing the random function of the Just and Pope (1978, 1979), and Feasible Generalize List Square approach (FGLS), the role of climatic and non-climatic factors were evaluated in the mean and variance of yield in six regions including Abadeh, Eqlid, Marvdasht, Shiraz, Larestan and Lamerd (1374_1395). The data of temperature and precipitation were predicted through four-time period contains 2011-2030, 2031-2050, 2051-2070, and 2071-2090. Four scenarios including RCP 4. 5 and RCP 8. 5 relying on GFDL-CM3 model in order to forecast climate’ s variables. Finally yield and its risk were analyzed. Results and discussion The results demonstrated that the precipitation as one of the most important factors, climate change phenomenon has positive significance on rain-fed wheat yield, thus the precipitation can predict 1. 61 percent of variation of rain-fed wheat yield. Moreover, the precipitation and temperature as a reducing risk inputs are effective factors to rain-fed wheat yield of Fars province. Findings illustrated that climate change provides the condition for temperature to be able to compensate loss due to reduced precipitation, because of both positive effect of temperature and precipitation. Suggestion According to study findings, some suggestions were presented to policy makers in designing mitigation and adaptation strategies for rain-fed wheat farmers in response to climate change like using heat and drought resistant seed and mechanizing cultivation of rain-fed wheat due to the negative effects of some inputs such as seed and labor on yield at the recent climate of the area.

Introduction The growing people's awareness about the impact of food consumption on human health has led to serious consideration for the production and consumption of organic products, including rice in many countries. Rice is the second most used cereal after wheat in Iran where chemical fertilizers and pesticides are used for crop productions such as rice. Due to the lack of chemicals used in organic rice production, its consumption can be effective in reducing diseases and promoting community health. The global organic rice market that was valued at US$ 1, 120 million in 2017 expected to reach US$ 1, 390 million by the end of 2025, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 2. 8 percent. Despite its vital role, there is no official market for organic rice in the country and to best of our knowledge; little researches have been done in this area so far. This study aims to estimate willingness to pay for organic rice, using contingent valuation method based on open-ended questions in Shiraz city, and to evaluate indirectly possible changes in households’ well-being in Shiraz by switching towards organic rice. Methodology Since consumers' willingness to pay as the dependent variable consists of zero and positive values, the Tobit model was utilized as the first step of this study. However, the Tobit model relies crucially on normality and homoscedasticity assumptions. If the error term is either heteroskedastic or nonnormal, the MLE is inconsistent. Therefore, in this study, after estimating the Tobit model, the hypotheses of homoskedasticity and normality of the residuals were tested and the results showed that these hypotheses are rejected. The Tobit regression makes a strong assumption that the same probability mechanism generates both the zero and the positives values. Heckman twostep model allows for the possibility that such values are generated by different mechanism. Also, this model allows for dependence in the two parts of the model. The Heckman two-step model comprises a selection (participation) equation and an outcome (WTP) equation. In the first step of the Heckman two-stage procedure, a Probit model was estimated and based on the results, the inverse Mills ratio was calculated. In the second step, an ordinary least squares regression for the positive values of the dependent variable (consumer’ willingness to pay for organic chicken meat) was estimated including the inverse Mills ratio as one of the explanatory variables. Results and Discussions The results of Probit model showed that the effects of gender and household size on the selection of organic rice by consumers are significant. Accordingly, women are more likely to buy organic rice than men and as household size decreases the probability of buying organic rice increases. But estimation of Heckman second stage showed that the effects of these variables on the price premium for organic rice are not significant. In other words, although women and families with low populations are more likely to choose organic rice, they are not willing to pay extra for organic rice. The results showed that education level has a positive and significant effect on both the selection and the willingness to pay for organic rice. Thus, the probability of organic rice being selected by the head of households with a college degree is 61% higher than that of uneducated households. The consumers’ willingness to pay with a college degree is about 39 % more than others. Household income is one of the most important variables influencing the choice and willingness to pay a premium for organic rice. The effect of this variable on consumers’ selection and willingness to pay for this product is positive and significant. According to the results, the probability of choosing organic rice by high-income households is 73% higher than low-income ones and their willingness to pay is 32% more. Conclusion and Suggestion The results of the data analysis showed that a significant percentage of people (about 89. 3%) are willing to pay a price premium for organic rice consumption compared to their conventional type. Based on the findings of this study, it might be concluded that the more educated and richer families, the more they are willing to pay for organic rice, and presumably other organic foods, implying that their welfares go up significantly by switching from conventional rice to the organic rice consumption. Therefore, raising the awareness of people about the negative effects of pesticides and fertilizers application in conventional crop cultivation and the benefits of consuming organic rice can be effective in market development and increasing the willingness to pay for organic rice. To sum up with, it can be concluded that there is a potential consumption market for organic rice in Shiraz and rice producers in Fars province can benefit from it and start cultivating organic rice.

Agriculture has always been a risky activity and in this regard, one of the tools that today, especially in developing countries, plays an important role in tackling these risks and also the confidence of the farmer and guaranteeing the price of the product is the conclusion of agricultural contracts that the conclusion of agricultural contracts that increases the incentives for farmers to produce. expansion of agricultural contracting is important because demand for agricultural products increases with increasing income and population growth, and also increasing agricultural productivity and efficiency with the use of modern agricultural technologies. Given that much of the agriculture in developing countries is in small farms, agricultural contracts are usually used to improve the welfare of these producers, therefore in this study investigating the factors affecting the conclusion of agricultural contracts as well as the exchangeable income between different contracting groups of tomato farmers in Kermanshah province in 2018 has been discussed. Theoretical framework used in this study is that farmers and their decisions to choose the type of contract are always to maximize return on profit and minimize cost over time. These market contract alternatives can be divided into three different contract categories: written contracts, oral contracts, and non-contracts. Since in Iran agricultural products (such as tomatoes) lack three types of private, cooperative and hybrid contracts, so in this study, only tomato farmers were investigated in three categories (written, oral and non-contractual). Cochran's formula was used to obtain a desirable sample, since the total number of members of the tomato community was not available. According to Cochran's formula, the optimal sample of farmers was calculated for the common trait of the cultivated area with standard deviation (0. 31) and 95% confidence level of 150 farmers. Also, all questionnaires were collected randomly and interviewed with farmers in crop year 2018-2019. The dependent variable included codes 1, 2 and 3 that were considered for written, oral, and non-contractual contracts, respectively. Other explanatory variables included gender, education level, household size, vehicle ownership, computer access to up-to-date communication tools, relative product share in the household, area of cultivation, participation in training, other crop production, status of speculators in the region (zero and one). ), Access to credit, distance to market, amount of production per hectare, and revenue from the crop. This study, there were no sequential multiple responses and Multinomial Logit model was used to analyze the factors influencing the type of tomato crop contract. Multinomial Logit regression model is the generalization of simple (dual) logistic regression model in which the dependent variable takes more than two modes and there is no specific order between the selected options and finally to measure the traded earnings among different contracting groups. The regression switching approach was applied. in order to estimate the desired models STATA 15 software is used. The results of the study, apart from the various effects of variables applied on the surveyed groups, showed that the farmers group with a written and uncontacted contract receive 49 and 46 percent of their income by handing them over to the other group. Also Farmers with an oral contract and without a contract are respectively receive 42 and 52 percent of the revenue from placing their product in both contractual groups. In fact, the results show that there is no group of farmers who sell their entire crop under one contract and there is always the incentive to sell through other contracts. From the results of the regression switching approach it can be deduced that although the sample tomato farmers belong to different contracting groups. But they are interconnected. Because of the benefits that each contracting party has, they always receive part of their income from intervention in the other group. It is important to note that, first, not all farmers are required to accept a contracting group, secondly, the primary revenue generated from the crop is of great importance, and this leads to the interference of contracting groups. Based on the above results, the main suggestion of this study is that contracting groups may even prioritize their payments to farmers in order to increase the confidence of tomato farmers in the province or in a multistage manner (before planting, during harvesting due to high labor costs). ) be done. This can reduce the incentive to sell farmers to other contracting groups.